The post convention bounce that led to jubilation in the mainstream media has exhausted itself and Romney is coming back strongly. Having shown Obama as much as four points ahead of Romney in the immediate aftermath of the Conventions, Rasmussen now has the president down to a one point margin: Obama: 46 Romney: 45.

Instead, the fundamental flaws of the Democratic strategy are emerging: By tying the race to unrealistic expectations of economic recovery, Obama has mortgaged his re-election campaign to the dismal monthly and weekly economic data that assaults us constantly.

And the days after his convention recessed have not been good for President Obama. Instead of strong executive leadership, we are seeing a world and a country in chaos while the president campaigns.

• Libya, which we liberated at a cost of over one billion dollars and at the risk of our military men and women, now fails to protect our embassy against Islamist extremists. Our ambassador is assassinated in a terrorist attack.

• Egypt, the recipient of $1.3 billion of U.S. aid permits a mob to storm our embassy in Cairo and burn our flag. Our embassy issues a statement calling an independent film privately produced in the United States “an abuse of the First Amendment” rather than making clear that free speech in America is nobody’s business but our own.

• The president, continuing to bet on improving our image in the Muslim world, refuses to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu during his forthcoming visit to the United States.

• Meanwhile, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who masqueraded as a friend of Israel when she served in the Senate from New York, declares that there are no “red lines” constraining Iranian nuclear ambitions. They can, essentially, do whatever they want without triggering an American military response. And, despite Egyptian re-militarization of the Sinai and its increasing repudiation of the Camp David Accords, she approves additional aid and credits for Cairo.

• The Federal Reserve Board warns of an impending economic catastrophe as Bob Woodward’s new book excoriates the Administration for failing to conclude — or even seriously to pursue — a long term debt and deficit reduction agreement.

• In Chicago, Obama’s political base, the schools are closed and the teachers — among the most highly paid in America — are on strike to protest the Mayor’s outrageous demand that their pay be based on their performance.

And through it all, there is no presidential leadership. He’s too busy raising money to run ads so he can tell us what a great leader he is.

Everywhere we see, in ruins, Obama’s plans for our country. His foreign policy has encouraged revolutions that have brought our worst enemies to power in the Middle East while his environmental policies have tried — fortunately without success — to limit our domestic production of energy. His education reforms have no teeth and he sits by passively as they are challenged by his own local teachers union.

Credit much of the quick end to his bounce to Romney’s ads which, right off the bat after the Democratic Convention closed, rapped Obama for trying to convince us that we are better off than we were four years ago. Obama’s campaign essentially poses the question: What will you believe — your own eyes or my speeches?

And the polls show that the spellbinding power of his teleprompter-eloquence has a shorter and shorter half life.